As clients adopt more payment platforms than ever, small firm CPAs, EAs, and tax practitioners are inheriting a growing layer of compliance risk.

Clients now accept payments through multiple platforms — merchant processors, online invoicing tools, peer-to-peer apps, and third-party marketplaces. While convenient for the client, these disconnected systems often produce inconsistent records, missing documentation, and fragmented payment data that creates real exposure for your practice.

For sole practitioners and small firms with limited staff, managing this complexity can consume valuable time. More importantly, incomplete visibility increases the risk of authorization gaps, PCI compliance failures, and reconciliation breakdowns that are difficult to defend under audit or dispute.

In this session, Alternative Payments CEO, Baxter Lanius, will break down where compliance gaps most commonly arise in multi platform payment environments and how small firms can strengthen control without adding administrative burden. You will gain practical strategies to improve reconciliation processes, clarify gross versus net reporting, and implement structured payment workflows that protect both your clients and your practice.

In this session, Alternative Payments CEO Baxter Lanius will break down where compliance gaps most commonly arise in multi-platform payment environments and how small firms can strengthen control without adding administrative burden. You will gain practical strategies to improve reconciliation processes, close PCI data security gaps, and implement structured payment workflows that protect both your clients and your practice.This session is designed to help tax professionals reduce avoidable risk, defend their work with stronger documentation, and create cleaner, more reliable payment oversight across client systems.

1. Identify Hidden Compliance Risks in Multi-Platform Payment Systems
   Pinpoint where fragmented payment activity creates reporting gaps, incomplete documentation, and security weaknesses that increase audit and liability exposure.
2. Understand PCI DSS and What It Means for Your Clients
   Learn what the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard requires, what constitutes a violation, and who bears liability when client payment data is mishandled.
3. Strengthen Documentation for Notice Response and Audit Defense
   Develop practical documentation standards — including authorization records and access logs — that make it easier to respond confidently to IRS inquiries and chargeback disputes.
4. Address Gross vs. Net Revenue Reporting Challenges
   Clarify how processing fees, chargebacks, and platform deductions affect reported income and how to avoid common misclassification errors across fragmented processors.
5. Implement Structured Payment Oversight Without Adding Staff
   Explore realistic workflow improvements — tokenized vaults, unified reconciliation, and automated AR — that increase visibility and control while keeping processes manageable for small firms.